No trust in the military chiefs! For a government of the representatives
of workers, small farmers and the poor!

Immediate elections to a revolutionary constituent assembly
supervised by committees of working and poor people and the youth!

Less than 24 hours after he declared he would stay until September,
Mubarak has been forced to resign as Egyptian president. The increasing
size of the demonstrations, and especially the working class’s
collective entry into the struggle through a nationwide strike wave,
marked a decisive new stage in the revolution. Mubarak’s last TV
broadcast enraged the more than six million who were then protesting on
Egypt’s streets and the indignation spread to the military, as reports
came in of soldiers going over to the side of the demonstrators.

This turning point is a tremendous victory for all those who
courageously fought Mubarak’s police state - the youth, the working
class and the fighters in Tahrir Square. It is a huge example to workers
and the oppressed around the world that determined mass action can
defeat governments and rulers no matter how strong they appear to be.

However the battle is not over yet, dangers still remain. The unelected
vice-president Suleiman, the Mubarak police state’s former head of
intelligence, announced that the former president handed over power to
the “High Council of the armed forces to administer the affairs of the
country”. The new head of state, Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, has been
defence minister and the armed forces Commander-in Chief since 1991,
nearly two-thirds of the time that Mubarak was in power. A BBC
correspondent commented that “The army takeover looks very much like a
military coup … because officially it should be the speaker of
parliament who takes over, not the army leadership”.

In answer to this, the mass of the Egyptian people must assert their
right to decide the country’s future. No trust should be put in figures
from the regime or their imperialist masters to run the country or run
elections. There must be immediate, fully free elections, safeguarded by
mass committees of the workers and poor, to a revolutionary constituent
assembly that can decide the country’s future.

Now the steps already taken to form local committees and genuine
independent workers’ organisations should be speeded up, spread wider
and linked up. A clear call for the formation of democratically elected
and run committees in all workplaces, communities and amongst the
military rank and file would get a wide response.

These bodies should co-ordinate removal of the old regime, and maintain
order and supplies and, most importantly, be the basis for a government
of workers’ and poor representatives that would crush the remnants of
the dictatorship, defend democratic rights and start to meet the
economic and social needs of the mass of Egyptians.